


twisting the kaleidoscope behind both of my eyes

by confines



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Crying, Enemies to Friends (not exactly but close enough), Gen, Imprisonment, Injury, Injury-related Body Horror, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Panic Attacks, Non-graphic Animal Death in the context of hunting for survival, Off-screen torture, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison Escape, Rating May Change, Starvation, Warnings May Change, fic may go darker places post ch. 3, if the uncertainty bugs you just don't read past ch. 3, or i might finish it by the grace of the gods, or it might end abruptly and unsatisfactorily on ch. 5 a few weeks from now, watch out this fic might be abandoned after ch. 3 which has a semi-satisfying ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-08 04:25:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14686430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confines/pseuds/confines
Summary: Nott and Caleb meet in jail. They escape together and then they survive together.





	1. Chapter 1

When Nott is first thrown in the cell with the human, she can't help but notice his pitiful state.

She's not doing so well herself, in all fairness. She'd been outnumbered and surrounded too quickly to really resist her arrest, yet she still wound up bruised and scraped in several places. Nott's more damaged than she feels is strictly necessary, but the human in the corner has more wounds than she's ever seen on a human before, which is saying something. She doesn't know when she'll be getting out, _if_ she'll be getting out, but she hopes he doesn't die while she shares the cell with him. She'd rather not add 'corpse stench' to the ever-lengthening list of things she has to deal with.

One of the guards jeers at them while throwing Nott in, barking out, “We've brought you a friend,” and then, turning his attention to the other guard and affecting a mock-serious tone, “Do you think she'll eat him?”

The human in the corner doesn't respond apart from shivering, but he looks like he's been shivering for a while so Nott doesn't think it counts.

Being in such close quarters with a human would normally make her anxious, but this one's so frail-looking and terrified she doubts he could hurt her if he tried.

She spends the first twenty minutes of her captivity examining every inch of the dreary little cell, save for the one corner. There's a window, far too high up for her to reach without a grappling hook, though even with a grappling hook there would still be the issue of the metal bars.

When she gives up on figuring out how to escape via window and begins examining individual bricks, she hears a wet cough from the corner before a tired voice mumbles, “There is no escape,” in thickly accented Common.

She whips her head around to stare at the human. Her gaze flits from his shaking shoulders to his pale, bare feet. Several of his toes are clearly broken. When she looks at his face she sees he isn't even looking at her, keeping his eyes meekly turned to the floor.

“Maybe not for you,” she says. “You're weak.”

He doesn't reply for so long that she turns back to the bricks. She runs quick fingers over every one she can reach, looking for a brick that has even just a tiny bit of give to it. She finds none. When she slumps into the corner diagonal from the human for a quick rest, he finally responds, still looking at the exact same piece of floor.

“I was strong before. You will be weak soon.”

She scowls, thinks about attacking him. He looks like one solid hit could knock him unconscious, maybe even kill him. But he also looks like he knows it. Perhaps he wants her to kill him. Whatever the case, she decides he's not worth the effort and curls up to rest.

 

.

 

Months later, the memory of that decision will come back to her in the dead of the night and she will spend a good few minutes calming herself down so that her panicked breaths don't awaken Caleb. She could've killed him. She easily could've killed the best human that she's ever met and she never would've even _known._

 

.

 

A few days pass in which they exchange no further words. Nott determines two things.

Firstly, the human might've actually been on to something when he said there was no escape

And second, whatever he did to get put into this cell must have been a really, _really_ stupid thing to do.

The guards have not acknowledged Nott beyond throwing her the occasional small heel of bread and holding a glaive in her general direction every time they open the cell door. Which happens at least once a day, because the human is dragged out of the cell every afternoon like clockwork.

The first full day after she's thrown into the cell, the human comes back smelling of overcooked meat. She has maybe one full minute of jealousy before she figures out that the smell is _him,_ the flesh of his right arm discoloured and swollen in places, his skin burnt so badly as to be almost unrecognisable. She sees other burns on him as well but they're nothing compared to the awful blistered and blackened mess of his arm. Nott wonders how long it will take him to lose the arm or succumb to the inevitable infection. Nott wonders what they'll do to a goblin if they're willing to do this to a human.

The next day he's hauled back into the cell while hanging onto consciousness by a fragile thread, his skin tinged blue and the scraps of his shirt sopping wet. Within the hour, he awakens enough to begin coughing and doesn't stop until he's hacked up copious amounts of pinkish-coloured froth and far too much water. Nott falls asleep to the sound of his laboured wheezing and doesn't entirely expect him to still be breathing in the morning.

She grows accustomed to the routine, even if she can't adjust to her cellmate's systematic disintegration of health. Perhaps the worst aspect of it is the human's resignation. He doesn't seem horrified by the threads of his clothing stuck in his scorched flesh. He clearly doesn't enjoy coughing up water but he definitely regards it as mundane. When he bleeds through the bandages that have been sloppily applied to what Nott is sure must be truly horrifying wounds, he doesn't seem concerned. He barely even moves apart from when he's being pulled into and out of the cell.

She focuses mainly on ignoring him and continuing to check the same nooks and crannies and bricks that she's checked dozens upon dozens of times. She pays attention to the position of the sun when the guards come and when they return, learns when exactly to expect them. If her roommate wants to die in this cell, he can, but she certainly won't.

 

.

 

Nott's fifth day spent in the cell starts as every other has.

The sun wakes her, she checks the cell for structural weaknesses, eventually the guards come and get the human.

But when he is returned to the cell it is clear that today is quite different. The human is still filthy, still dressed in rags that have seen much better days, but his charred arm has been healed. His bruises and cuts are gone, and she no longer hears the godsawful rasping of his lungs as he breathes. He stumbles his way into what she now regards as 'his' corner and curls himself into a tight ball, facing towards her but not looking in her direction. One of the guards drops two trenchers full of what looks to be boiled potatoes and then kicks them over, sending one to Nott and the other to the human.

The moment the glaive is no longer being brandished at her and the guards are mostly behind the heavy wooden door, she falls upon the potatoes with more vigour than she's ever attacked a meal before. When she is done with the potatoes, she holds the plate of bread to her chest so the freshly healed human won't get any bright ideas about pinching it.

When she's through eating, the human still hasn't moved. He hasn't touched his food. Hasn't done anything. He's rocking slightly, shoulders pitching forwards and back, forwards and back. His eyes are clenched tightly shut.

As she looks from him to his food, she thinks _I could steal that._ Thinks, _Even now that he's healed, he's still skinny and weak._

And yet. She doesn't.

She finishes eating her bread before the sun has gone down and when she awakens from her first sleep it is to the sound of her cellmate sobbing miserably. She can see well enough to know that he's still rocking, now with an added motion from his hitching breaths. He still hasn't eaten his food. She wants to feel anger for his lack of gratitude, wants to walk over and snatch the trencher from him, devour it all at once. But something stops her. She has no idea what.

She spends at least an hour listening to his pathetic snivelling and thinking about possible methods of escape before she falls back to sleep.

 

.

 

In the morning, the food is gone and there is a purring cat dozing on her sleeping cellmate's chest. The cat watches her through slitted eyes as she gets up and begins her daily examination of the cell. When she's done, she sits in the centre of the tiny cell, rays of sunshine beaming down upon her through the window she can't reach. She breathes, mimicking contentedness she does not feel and settles down to peer back at the furry creature.

“How did you get in here?” she mutters.

Something in the cat's expression shifts and the human's deep, even breathing hitches momentarily then speeds up with wakefulness. A croaky voice says, “I let him in.”

“Oh yeah? Through the door then, did you?” she responds airily, trying to disguise how disconcerting it is to hear the human's voice for the first time in nearly a week.

“ _Nein,_ ” he says. “Like this.”

And he snaps his fingers and the cat blips quietly out of existence.

Despite trying to continue feigning detached disinterest, she can't help but ask, “How'd you do that, then?”

The human curls back up, folding in on himself and firmly communicating that there will be no more talking. As much as Nott wants to force answers out of him just from sheer boredom, she's not convinced this human cares enough about his own mortality or sanity to be needled into talking about anything. Judging by their captors' daily torture sessions with him, there's at least one secret that he'd rather die than reveal.

That afternoon, when he returns, it is with the smell of charred flesh once again upon him.

 

.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if nott had taken caleb's food he probably never would have brought out frumpkin in front of her. that cat genuinely might be the only thing he cares about at the moment. 
> 
> fun fact: at many points in history, various cultures have participated in polyphasic sleep. according to my research, a first sleep followed by a short period of wakefulness, then a second sleep was common during the middle ages. when nott refers to ‘first sleep’ and waking up in the night, that’s what she’s talking about. i think of it as being the standard for goblins as well as humans.
> 
> i know liam has said multiple times that the "prison" caleb and nott were in was really just a podunk little jail but it's too late liam! i had already started writing this when that was first revealed and i've elected to continue disregarding canon for the drama.
> 
> also, fair warning, i’ve finished three chapters of this and i anticipate writing a lot more but i’ve never published a real chaptered work before and every one of my stories of similar length to what this one is looking like has been abandoned. i promise i’m going to publish these first three chapters in the next week or two and they pretty much form a cohesive story (with a lot of unfulfilled foreshadowing lol) but after that it’s up in the air. thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

As the week wears on, the human gets progressively more hurt before eventually returning fully healed. Or, mostly healed. Nott notices that this time he has fresh bruises around his throat to join his pained gait. When he slumps into his corner with carefully calculated movements that mean his back is never to her, he cannot stop himself from visibly wincing. She wonders what injury is so great that it isn't healed alongside the third-degree burns and the sickeningly mangled finger that he had held cradled to his chest for the past two days.

This time the guards bring not only vegetables but meat. It is not identifiable meat, but it definitely _is_ meat and she eats it first so it can't be taken. When she is starting on the vegetables, she hears the distinctive sound of fingers snapping and her gaze is immediately drawn to the cat winding around the human's bent legs.

She watches, in utter bewilderment, as the human feeds shreds of meat to the cat.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

He startles, dropping the piece of meat in his hand to the stone beneath, but still keeps his focus entirely on the cat.

“I am feeding my cat.”

“I can see that, but _why?_ ”

“Because he is hungry.”

“He's a magical disappearing and reappearing cat who looks like he's never missed a meal in his life, can't he find his own food?”

The human does not respond but instead continues hand-feeding the spoiled beast. The purring is louder when the cat's mouth is open and Nott truly hates that she notices this.

He doesn't feed the cat all of his meat, which is fortunate for him because Nott really might have killed him if he had. Just like the week before, he curls up in the corner near to his food, this time with the cat laying on the side of his hip and upper leg. It watches Nott as she eats and as she scrutinises the cell. It does not head towards her unattended trencher and she is almost disappointed. Killing the cat would be a lot more fun than counting the bricks for the hundredth time.

As had happened last week, she is awakened from her first sleep to the human's pitiful noises of distress. This time it is joined by the awful cat's loud purring. She plots how to kill and eat the cat for a while but eventually switches to wondering how the thing works.

The crying stops before she falls back to sleep. Privately, she admits that it's probably because of that damned cat that her cellmate managed to calm back down earlier this time. Not that she'll be thanking it.

 

.

 

Weeks pass. The food rations wax and wane, seemingly at random. Nott thinks it is a matter of what the jail has on hand. Small, shitty heels and loaves of bread are a constant throughout the week with occasional bowls of porridge. On days that she's come to think of as 'healing days,' there is a full meal and an only-slightly-injured human.

It's overall a steadier diet than she's been accustomed to lately but it's becoming more and more clear that it's not sustainable just because it's not _enough._ She's lost weight that she very much would have preferred to keep. Her cellmate hasn't but she's pretty sure that's only because he had none left to lose.

Healing days are a mixed blessing. They bring food but they also leave the human distressed and desolate for hours as he recovers from whatever it is that happens to him outside of the cell. Nott thinks it's strange that days he spends covered in cuts and burns seem to faze him less than the one day he spends mostly-healed with a full stomach.

It is on one such day, while shakily petting his cat, that he asks her her name. She baulks for a moment but upon further thought realises how little a threat this fragile and damaged human could likely ever pose to her.

“My name is Nott,” she says. “What's yours?”

“Caleb Widogast,” he replies, then gestures to the cat in his lap. “This is Frumpkin.”

She decides to test the waters by again asking how he makes the cat appear and disappear. For whatever reason, Caleb is actually willing to answer this time and tells her a lot of interesting things about his “familiar”. By the time he starts describing the possible pocket dimensions that Frumpkin spends time in when not summoned, his hands no longer shake and his breathing has evened out.

The next day is spent similarly. Nott and Caleb talk until the sun goes down and then spend the hour after first sleep talking abstractly about their dreams before lapsing into silence and falling back to sleep. If it weren't for Caleb's obviously excruciating torture sessions, the possible impending execution of at least Nott and so far as she knows maybe Caleb too, as well as their complete lack of control over absolutely anything, it would be almost cosy.

 

.

 

“Have you ever thought of escaping?” Nott whispers late one night.

For a moment all she hears is Frumpkin's aggressive purring.

“Ja,” Caleb whispers back.

“Can your cat carry things in its mouth?” she asks. _Do you want to get out of here,_ she means.

 

.

 

It starts out as a three-part plan.

Caleb, through Frumpkin, has to retrieve something from outside the cell that Nott can use to pick the lock on the cell door. It also has to fit through the crack under the door so the cat can bat it to them.

They have to wait until the guard posted outside leaves to go to the privy, using Frumpkin as a scout.

Then Nott has to pick the lock and they can quietly sneak out.

Over several days, the plan undergoes slight changes as they discuss strategy and tweak the finer details. Caleb hesitantly proposes that he start a fire to distract the guards. He also explains the layout of the parts of the building that Nott hadn't seen on her way in. They both know the context of how he's seen those rooms but purposely skirt around it.

It is Nott's suggestion that they launch the escape itself on a healing day.

“A what?” Caleb asks.

“You know, the days when you come in looking better instead of worse?” Nott says. “Meal days?”

“Oh,” Caleb says, voice faint. “I would not call those healing days but I understand your meaning, ja. Why on a... meal day?”

“Because you're in your best health and they've just fed us, it's perfect.”

“I'm... I'm not going to be able to run,” he says, blood rushing to his cheeks as he closely scrutinises the cat draped across his shoulders. Nott isn't really sure how his statement relates to healing days specifically.

“Can you, generally?” she asks. “I've just been hoping it won't come up during our escape.”

“Ja, me too,” he says. A long sigh escapes him. “I guess it doesn't matter what day it happens on as long as it's before the Wasserfolter. The... water days. I can't breathe after those.”

As if she could have somehow not noticed the awful sound of him hacking up water and struggling to breathe for several nights out of every week for the past month. He is right though, they won't make it far at all if he has to rely on lungs full of water.

They continue hammering out the details, sometimes talking more in one day than they had talked in their first 20 days of knowing each other combined.

Caleb, through Frumpkin, finds a piece of wire in the armoury and manages to sneak it back to their cell without being spotted. He is so gleefully excited when he snaps back into his body and sees Nott with her teeth bared in a grin and the wire in her hand that it triggers a coughing fit bad enough to make him hold his breath to stop it. So far as he is concerned, the tears streaming down his face can be blamed entirely on the fact that he's choking, not on some idiotic sense of hope for the future.

 

.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw, i'm on tumblr @ criticalrollercoaster and post about critical role constantly. my ask box is always open. :)


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, there are only two hitches in the plan.

The first is that when Caleb casts the fire spell he casts it much more... thoroughly, than they had intended.

The second is that the guards aren't as concerned by the jail being on fire with the prisoners still inside as Nott and Caleb had anticipated they would be.

Regardless of the slight hiccups, they manage to make it out of the cell and down the hall unnoticed.

On their way out, they stop in the armoury. Caleb grabs a pair of trousers, an ankle-length overcoat, and a pair of boots while Nott finds a dagger with a grooved wooden hilt and a curved metal finger guard. Her eyes trail over two suits of armour, a glaive, and a longsword before she feels Caleb grab her hand and lightly tug. Reluctantly agreeing that scavenging further is likely pressing their luck too far, she allows him to pull her into the hall.

They slip into the woods right as dusk is beginning to fall. Best case scenario, their absence will not be noticed until the next afternoon. _Or,_ Nott thinks, _Caleb's flame consumes the entire building and we are presumed dead._ That would be the very best case scenario, if a very unlikely one. A more realistic possibility is that a guard notices their empty cell in the morning, which would give them at least something like a headstart if they’re to be pursued.

They make it almost an hour before Caleb collapses against a tree and can't make himself get back up despite several attempts.

Nott, who had been waiting for this as she watched his steps grow increasingly unsteady, settles against a nearby tree. When she looks at Caleb, panting on the forest floor, he is already looking at her. He nods, great deliberation in the motion and an odd formality to it considering his breathlessness. She’s not sure what his nod means—nor her solemnly returned head dip—but both feel right.

Leaning her head against the pine at her back, she thinks about the sound of the heavy wood door closing behind them as they escaped, a soft thud that was more of a feeling than a sound. Thinks about how she'll never have to hear it again. She breathes the night air, the tree's bark pressing roughly into her shoulders, and relaxes, just for a moment.

 

.

 

The next day they slowly wander further away from their prison, frequently stopping for long breaks. They are both malnourished and weak from their time there, Caleb moreso than Nott. Around midday, while Caleb sleeps, Nott catches a rabbit in one of many vine snares that she’s set and has it dead and skinned before she realises they have no fire. Not that she minds, but her companion might.

“Caleb?” she murmurs softly. She knows from several bad experiences in their cell that he doesn't take well to loud noises waking him up.

She slowly approaches his sleeping figure until she gets close enough to pat at Frumpkin, who is once again sleeping on Caleb's chest. She doesn't care much for the cat's ever-shedding coat of fur but knows for a fact that petting him is the best way to awaken Caleb peaceably. A few soft touches to the sleeping cat's head sends him jerking back in a flurry of startled chirrups and after he lazily stretches across Caleb's chest, he begins to make dough on him, nuzzling his face into Caleb's neck and jawline.

Nott watches as Caleb, still mostly asleep, brings both arms up to pet his familiar. Within a few minutes, he graduates to opening his eyes.

“I killed some food but I'm not sure how to cook it,” she says, brandishing the skinned rabbit. “Do you think it'd be safe to build a fire?”

His eyes focus on the rabbit for a second before darting quickly back to her face. He is silent for a moment, still running his hands over Frumpkin.

“I think it might be safe but I don't know if we should risk it,” he says, voice deeper from sleep. “I could cook it with my fire spell and there would be less smoke. Or you could eat it raw.”

“ _I_ could, sure, but I think it'd be best if you'd cook it.”

“Okay.”

Caleb wraps his arms around Frumpkin and sits up so his back is against the tree he slept beside. The cat gracefully adjusts to the change in gravity, letting its back feet stand on Caleb's legs while resting its front paws on his chest. When Caleb winces from the shifting, Frumpkin knocks his furry head into Caleb's chin, violently rubbing his face against the sides of his neck, as if trying to distract him. Not for the first time, Nott wonders just how intelligent Frumpkin is.

The human is clearly _hurt_ , not just malnourished and tired. Nott hopes whatever injury he’s hiding from her doesn't kill him. Not that she cares if he dies, not really. She doesn't _need_ him and if she had to go it alone from here she certainly could. But they do make a good team and his magical skill is invaluable. And it would be a shame for them to have gone to all that trouble to escape only for one of them to die in the woods. _It's not affection_ _to hope he’s okay_ _, that would just be more convenient,_ she rationalises.

Nott quickly butchers the rabbit, right in the middle of their 'campsite.' There is nothing to indicate it’s a campsite and they'll be moving on soon enough so there's no real reason to hide the refuse from the local wildlife. She is also hopeful that the damn cat will eat the entrails and other unwanted organs and won't bother the human for scraps because she already knows he'll give them to him. For someone so smart, Caleb is astoundingly dumb when it comes to food.

Caleb ignites his hands and touches them to the rabbit that Nott now holds skewered on her dagger. He runs his hands over it repeatedly, making very similar motions to when he pets his cat.

It takes ages, and the cooking is somewhat uneven despite his best efforts, but barely any smoke rises. When he is done, he leans back against the tree and closes his eyes again.

Nott begins to tear in, having already determined that the most reasonable way of dividing the rabbit is lengthwise. It tastes better than she had expected, perhaps only because hunger makes for a very good spice. When she's eaten roughly half of it, she pats Caleb on the shoulder and holds the dagger out for him to grab.

He opens his eyes and stares at the proffered food. “For me?”

“It's your half.”

“Why...?” he trails off, hand still not coming up to take it. She has to adjust its position slightly when Frumpkin interestedly stands on his hindlegs to smell it.

“It wouldn't be fair for one of us to get the back half and the other one to get the front half, so down the middle it was. Mostly, anyway.”

“O-okay,” he stutters, ever so slowly reaching out a hand to take the rabbit. He acts as if she'll suddenly rip it away, even after she's held it out for so long.

She abruptly realises he hadn't been asking why she had split the rabbit the way she had, he had been asking why she was sharing. As if it would make any sense for her not to share food with him when the continuing success of their escape relies on his health as much as hers.

As predicted, he gives some of the meat to the cat. He has sense enough to do it in such a way that Nott never actually sees him do it but the sounds of Frumpkin's jaw snapping shut repeatedly and the distinctive noise of a cat licking its chops are unmistakable.

Nott rolls her eyes, sitting for a quick rest before they leave again. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

.

 

Regardless of whatever had been wrong with Caleb on the day of their escape, within a week his gait becomes as natural as hers and he no longer winces when he has to do anything with his legs.

They scrape by, both Nott and Frumpkin hunting in the afternoons while Caleb forages for edible mushrooms and berries. In the mornings they trek further away from their former prison. It is oddly comfortable, their routine. Caleb is getting better at cooking by hand and Nott’s fallen back into hunting like she'd never stopped. Their cohabitation is pleasantly simple and straight-forward as they wander through the forest.

At night, nightmares come for both of them, Caleb's much more evident than they had been while they were in jail. For Nott, they are quiet, horrible dreams of her clan finding her and throwing her back in the prison with it still on fire and similar horrors. Nott doesn't know what Caleb's are about but she knows that if he's not awakened from them early, he will murmur agitatedly in his mothertongue until either his volume or his distress wake him.

It takes them an embarrassingly long time to figure out that if they sleep beside each other, the nightmares will not come for either of them. So far as Nott knows, anyway. Caleb doesn't wake her up anymore, and she no longer worries about nocturnal predators being attracted to his noises.

After this discovery, they spend every evening with Nott plastered to Caleb's back or side and Frumpkin usually laying curled up on Caleb's chest or stomach. Nott wonders if, two months ago, she could've been convinced that she would one day sleep side by side with a human and a cat.

 

.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the... end...? unless i successfully wrangle what else i've written and/or write at least 10k more because what i've written so far has yet to do anything other than skirt very, very widely around the plot bunny that started all of this?? either way, thank you for reading. i hope you enjoyed.


End file.
